


Fraught

by Arya_Greenleaf



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Clothed Sex, Drunk Sex, Drunken Confessions, F/F, Female Ejaculation, First Time, Frottage, Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-11-27 22:53:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20956250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arya_Greenleaf/pseuds/Arya_Greenleaf
Summary: Aziraphale has been steadily climbing the stairs while she chatters and Crowley has followed in just a slight daze after her. She nearly trips, focused on the gentle hand around her wrist. Her heel catches on the lip of the stair and slips against the hardwood. She tugs on Aziraphale as she catches herself, putting a halt to the monologue on shelving dimensions."Everything alright?""For me," she repeats. "You've done it for me."





	Fraught

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, the title is a pun.
> 
> Standard Disclaimer: Haven't seen the show, book only. Have used "AZ Fell" since it's tidy and works well and I can't recall if they've specifically named the shop at all in the book.
> 
> This story is set in the Fall of 1936.
> 
> [Prompted by this Chéri Hérouard illustration and grew from there. Image is NSFW.](https://twitter.com/Bibliocuriosa/status/1109634875575943170?s=20) The celestials don't get quite so bare, however.

"Aziraphale," Crowley asks in a wry rasp. A leaf frees itself from tree they are passing under and she catches it before it finds its way to the angel's shoulder. "Are you aware that hat looks like you've got a halo on?"

"That's preposterous, Crowley. It's got a bow."  
  
"I suppose you can't help it. Being what you are, fashion follows."  
  
"And what does that say about you, dear?" Aziraphale raises a brow.

She's out of fashion. Not old-fashioned, but simply not on trend. Her natural brows are thick and just barely brushed into shape. Her cheeks are flushed and rosy, lips pale pink. She's had a flake of setting powder just there on the bridge of her nose all afternoon that Crowley hasn't had the heart to brush away -- it's far too innocent and endearing.

Her white pant hems remain miraculously undirtied even in the carpet of slightly rotted, rain soaked leaves they've been walking over through the park. There's a pile of them just down the lane. The temptation to push Aziraphale into it -- gently, of course -- is making Crowley's hands tremble.

"You never answered my question, you know," Crowley reminds.  
  
"What was that again?"  
  
Crowley squints and purses her lips. They pass the pile of leaves and she hesitates for just a moment. "What do you think of that Wallis?" [1]  
  
Aziraphale's cheeks turn just a slightly darker shade and her lips turn down in what is very much the deepest, ugliest frown Crowley has ever seen on her fine face.  
  
"Well, that answers that."

Aziraphale walks just a tick faster and Crowley takes several long strides to catch up again.

"Angel, I haven't got anything to do with this, you have to believe that."

"No, Crowley-dear, of course you don't. These times are entirely Human in their devilishness."  
  
"They think I do."  
  
"Who?" Aziraphale seems absent. She's slowed down again, her burst of fury quickly spent.  
  
"Hell, obviously."  
  
Aziraphale just frowns very deeply again.

They walk for some time in tense silence until they come around to where the Bentley is parked. It's ten years old and Crowley fusses over it just as much as a doting parent with an adolescent child. She stops to scrub carefully at a smudge on the hood with the silk handkerchief she plucks from the inside of her sleeve. The bright red flashes against the glossy black.  
  
"Will you let me give you a ride home?"  
  
Aziraphale looks up at the sky. The sunny but crisp day is turning quickly overcast. "Against my better judgement, please."  
  
"Against your better judgement?"

Crowley repeats, full of offense.  
  
"Yes! You drive... you drive like -- like a bat out of Hell. Far too fast."  
  
"Gets you where you're going, doesn't it?"  
  
"At the risk of the populace, sure." Aziraphale's mouth quirks upward into the smallest smile and she allows Crowley to take her hand as she ducks into the open passenger's door, the other on her head so as to not knock her hat as she passes through.  
  
Crowley drives the sleek racing car in the most painfully slow manner that she can manage. [2] It's a crime, really, to waste all this glorious horsepower on a forty-eight kilometer speed limit. [3]

Aziraphale either doesn't notice the purposeful crawling or thinks that Crowley has finally come to her senses as they navigate through Soho and onto the street that boasts the bookshop.

They glide into a spot just in front of the building and Crowley is out of the cockpit and around the back to open the door before Aziraphale can do it herself. She takes Crowley's offered hand and steps carefully onto the curb.

Crowley lingers beside the car, the air in the space Aziraphale had occupied just seconds ago is shimmery and warm. Her chest tightens. She remembers a time when she radiated warmth and light, too -- when she was receiving commendations for inspiring the flora and fauna to flourish and for painting brilliant scenes across the cosmic canvas; helping to create the elements of life within massive, dynamic clouds that glowed with the effort -- not for inducing the very worst in Humanity.  
  
"Crowley? Crowley-dear, are you listening?"  
  
Aziraphale's voice is like a hard smack in the face delivering her back to the present. She begins to answer, begging the angel's pardon -- a sort of backward bit of blasphemy -- when a man in a smart coat with a tall grey dog on a leash approaches the storefront. Aziraphale's attention snaps toward the man as he tries the door and mumbles something rather rude.

"Can I help you, sir?" she asks in an exceedingly polite tone.  
  
"Are you Fell's secretary? Can you open this damned shop? I need to speak him immediately."  
  
"No, sir, I am not."

"Wife then, is it? Please bring your husband down here, Mrs. Fell, it is absolutely imperative. I told him I wanted that book and I'll not accept _no_ for an answer. There's no reason not to sell -- "  
  
Aziraphale makes a bitter sound that's something like a laugh. "Crowley, he wants me to go get my husband."  
  
"I heard him, angel."  
  
"Mrs. Fell, please."  
  
"There is only me, sir. This is my shop and I wouldn't sell you a wet newspaper, let alone anything inside that building."  
  
"Ma'am, don't be ridiculous. The gentleman who -- _Mr. Fell_ \-- "

"There is no Mr. Fell, there is _AZ Fell_ and that is _me_."  
  
"Mrs. Fell, I spoke to your husband last week and -- "  
  
"Crowley, would you like to come upstairs and get absolutely plastered?"  
  
"Mrs. Fell!"

Crowley grins and steps up to the door. She takes Aziraphale's arm and proclaims herself delighted in the invitation. The man continues to sputter and argue, attempting to insinuate himself into the doorway when Aziraphale finally gets the lock to disengage in her flusterment. The dog stands by, utterly dopey and disinterested in the entire exchange. It is focused on something across the street, wagging its tail. It pulls on the leash and the argumentative gentleman wobbles just a bit.  
  
"Sir," Aziraphale barks, spittle flying off of her lips. She angles her body as if to block Crowley from some oncoming attack, swiveling her companion around with a jerk of her arm. "You will have to take no for an answer today -- and be certain not to attempt to patronize my shop again."  
  
"Mrs. Fell, I have _cash_ to --"

"The lady said _no_," Crowley hisses from over Aziraphale's shoulder. The persistently unwanted customer finally looks at her, noticing her for possibly the first time in the midst of the entire exchange. He blanches perfectly white and takes a step back. His face flushes red and he nearly trips over the leash as the dog tugs again.  
  
"I -- I'll be calling upon Mr. Fell again. I -- "  
  
"There's only one Fell," Aziraphale repeats.

She plants herself more firmly in the doorway now that the man has vacated the space. With a tremulous, haughty look the man turns away. He tugs on the dog's leash and strides with purpose down the block, glancing over his shoulder once before he disappears around the corner.

"I'm so sorry, Crowley-dear, I honestly don't even remember him. Who in their right mind would think I'd sell any of my books anyway?" She harrumphs just a little and hefts the door open, the wood sticking a bit in the humidity of the threatening storm.  
  
"I couldn't imagine why, angel," Crowley croons and pushes her sunnies back up to the bridge of her nose with one slender finger.

Inside, the pair make their way into the back of the shop, weaving through the book-bloated shelves. Crowley moves toward the door to the back office, their usual place for meeting and imbibing. Aziraphale catches her hand and gestures toward the stairs that disappear into shadow and the dust of disuse.  
  
"No, no -- it's more comfortable up there."  
  
"On the floor? You haven't any furniture." [4]  
  
"Well, now I do."  
  
"Excuse me?"  
  
"I think you'll like it. It's a bit ostentatious. The neighbors were getting rid of it -- moving out to the country, you see, couldn't take it with them -- and I thought maybe you'd like a new chair. You always look a bit like you've been made of origami on your visits. It never quite occurs to me that you're all scrunched up with your knees in your chest until you're there in front of me -- everything's the perfect height for me."

"For me?" Aziraphale nods and mounts the stairs, tugging Crowley just a bit. "You changed your space for me?"  
  
"Not changed, dear, added to. I don't really use these rooms, you know that. It's a nice start, though. My collection is growing -- I've been measuring for some new shelves. I'd like very much to match the existing ones. The couch is terribly comfortable -- I nearly fell asleep on it! Can you image that? An angel sleeping!"  
  
Aziraphale has been steadily climbing the stairs while she chatters and Crowley has followed in just a slight daze after her. She nearly trips, focused on the gentle hand around her wrist. Her heel catches on the lip of the stair and slips against the hardwood. She tugs on Aziraphale as she catches herself, putting a halt to the monologue on shelving dimensions.  
  
"Everything alright?"

"For me," she repeats. "You've done it for me."  
  
"You _do_ usually wind up on the floor after we've finished a bottle. Sometimes, I think you forget what body you're wearing -- you _have_ got limbs. But, I thought a more comfortable place to start off with would -- "  
  
"Thank you, angel," Crowley breathes earnestly.

Aziraphale pauses, hand resting on the doorknob at the top of the stairs. She smiles and it's like staring directly into the sun when Crowley looks up at her face.  
  
"Of course, Crowley-dear," she hums.

Outside, the air splits with a jolt of electricity and the sound of it shakes the foundation of the building.

Aziraphale doesn't pause to turn on a light. The space is simply illuminated, the light coming up slowly as she crosses the threshold from the landing. The room is charmingly done up, the small bit of it that's done up at all.

There's a large, round mirror on the wall that Crowley avoids when she catches a glimpse of her own flushed face. The sofa and chairs look like something the matriarch of a family wouldn't allow anyone to sit on, only to admire from the other side of the room. There is a low table that appears to have been recently polished and a bottle of wine already breathing on top of it. Crowley's not sure if it's her own doing or Aziraphale's.  
  
"Do sit!" The angel gestures to the sofa and turns toward the mirror, unpinning her hat to run her fingers through the waves beneath it. Her set has never been all that good, her curl patterns nonsensical. Today isn't any different. The constancy of it is a mild comfort.  
  
Crowley takes a step toward the sofa and thinks again, choosing a singular seat instead. Aziraphale's frown flashes quickly when she turns around to see Crowley sitting and reaching for the wine bottle. She fixes a smile back upon her features and drops down onto the sofa in a boneless way.  
  
"We got inside just in the nick of time, haven't we?" Aziraphale observes as rain begins to fall in earnest, hammering down on the roof, and thunder booms again.

"Such a storm," Crowley murmurs into her glass, breathing in the earthy scent of the Bordeaux. "And us with no ark to speak of." [5]  
  
She takes a sip, overwhelmed by the sweet fruit and smokey tobacco flavors that slip across her tongue. _This is what Heaven tasted like,_ she thinks. Sharp and bright and sweet and savory, the shadows in the corners only visible right before all of it slipped down her throat. She picks the bottle back up and squints at the label.  
  
Ah, a good vintage. [6]  
  
It's not yet occurred to Crowley that she might simply drink to drink. She still enjoys the slip-slide of flavor. She sips again and watches Aziraphale pass her own glass beneath her nose. The angel's lips turn up in that darling smile of hers once more and Crowley wonders what she's thinking.

"In as many bottles of this as we've shared, I can never quite tell what that berry taste is." Aziraphale licks her lips and holds her glass close to her chest, threatening the soft cream of her sweater with it. "Kind of lingers for a bit."  
  
"Cassis."

Azirpahle's brow gathers.

"Cassis berry -- black currants. They look quite dangerous out in the wild. Dark, shiny."  
  
Aziraphale's chest stops rising and falling. Her lips part. Her eyes shine like she's already drunk. "You would know," she giggles.

The wine disappears.  
  
And a second bottle.  
  
A third appears and both think better of it. The cork stays in place.  
  
Crowley's head spins with the booze and the static of the rain on the roof just over her head. She was only cool before, her constant need of heat at its natural equilibrium. Now, she's truly chilled. She feels like warmth is actively leeching from her very pores, the gooseflesh on her arms nearly painful. She pulls her legs up, easing her shoes off without untying them to balance her heels against the edge of her seat. She rubs her palms against her shins, willing the friction she creates against her stockings to defrost her legs just a little.  
  
"Crowley-dear, what's wrong?" The flush on Aziraphale's cheeks has spread to her chin and the tip of her nose, making her look like she's gone rogue with her blusher.

"Nothing! Just getting cozy." She wraps her arms around her knees and wiggles her toes. Face half-hidden in the flounce at the hem of her skirt she grins. "I'm a coil-er by nature."  
  
"You look like you're huddled against a gale -- I don't know why you don't come sit here with me. I don't bite. You won't burst into flame."  
  
"Ah, but perhaps I will and then your pretty new sofa will be ruined."  
  
"Don't be foolish," Aziraphale says and pats cushion beside her. "That's a risk I'm prepared to take."  
  
Crowley rises slowly. She plants one foot on the floor and then the other. She lifts her body from the seat, vertebra aligning to stand one at a time. She moves around the the shiny-topped table, jarring it with her knee and making the bottles tremble. They clink softly, a tiny bit of music under the storm.  
  
"You'd risk hellfire, angel?"  
  
"To have you near." Aziraphale says absently, like she's unaware the thought made it from her mind to her tongue. She closes her eyes as she sips the last mouthful of wine from her glass, lingering with the rim against her lips and breathing in the fragrant remnants.  
  
Crowley sits carefully beside Aziraphale, body rigid on the cushion. She leaves a good space between them, the white of Aziraphale's clothing against the floral damask catching her drunken interest -- she dares not disturb the fabric, to soil it with her touch.

Crowley looks up and Aziraphale is watching her. She reaches over and slides her fingers beneath the carefully careless wave of hair over Crowley's brow. "This suits you," she says. "Much better than... what was it? The _Brooks Look_, I think you called it."

Crowley tucks her hair behind her ears, brushing Aziraphale's hand away. "If it works for Lombard." [7]

"We just saw her, didn't we? In that funny film with the stolen pearls."

"_My Man Godfrey_."

"Yes! That was it." 

They lapse into uncomfortable silence and the rain outside falls harder. Wind whips around the building, screaming around the beams in the dead space just under the roof. The sound fills the room and Aziraphale leans closer.

"I can see why you like -- "

"Angel, they're going to expect me to work."

"What?"

"Hell. They already think I've started the trouble here. They're going to want me to stir the pot."

"Well that's alright. We've our Arrangement. Everything will turn out fine." Her expression is soft and self-assured and it makes Crowley's gut twist.

"I don't think it's enough." The purpose with which Aziraphale places her glass on the table lets Crowley know she agrees. "I like the world... there's so much _in it_..."

So much she watched being created.

"I can't do what they expect of me," Crowley blurts.

"So don't," Aziraphale says as if it's just that easy. 

When Aziraphale is drunk she is at her most honest. All of her angelic posturing falls away. She is never _dishonest_, not a liar. But her awareness of the wants of her side make her evasive. Crowley understands it. A Fall is no small risk.

Crowley leans in, however unconsciously. Aziraphale's radiance warms her face. Crowley wonders why she's never before noticed how much Aziraphale's eyelashes look like sterling.

"Mm, a crack in the Ineffable Plan?"

Aziraphale closes just a breath more of the space between them. "Not at all, Crowley-dear. It is ineffable that _you_ will do as you please. You might play their game, but you don't do their work. I'm not sure I've ever encountered such an exemplary bit of Free Will. Even if there is no Grace to it." 

Crowley watches Aziraphale watching her. She holds her breath. Aziraphale is still talking. Her voice is soft and soothing. It works its way between her ribs and squeezes it's hot fingers around her heart. Crowley moves closer, her body exerting Free Will entirely independent of her head. She shifts, turning her body to face Azirphale. The angel's mouth stops moving and a smile trembles across the curves of it.

Crowley dips forward.

Aziraphale's lips are as soft and warm as her voice. They give against Crowley's, opening and sliding wetly.

"Oh!" Aziraphale breathes, jerking away. "A kiss." She presses her lips together, amusement glimmering in her eyes. "What a marvelous invention of Humanity." She touches her lips with her fingertips.

Crowley surprises even herself. "I -- I -- I'm so sorry," she stammers. "That was completely inappropriate. I shouldn't have done that." There is fire in her chest, burning all of her guts up with embarrassment and shame. It had been an impulse, she'd hardly realized what she was doing as she was doing it and then it was so _nice_ and --

"A curious thing a kiss is. It's sort of a perfect encapsulation of one's feelings, enshrining all of that complexity of Humanity in one very small gesture. Love -- platonic or romantic or familial. Sometimes passion -- anger, even. Sometimes betrayal. The condition of the kiss indicative of the type of intimacy involved."

Crowley, poised hovering off of the sofa and ready to flee, is dumbstruck and frozen.

"I wonder, Crowley-dear," Aziraphale whispers like there is someone there to overhear. "Might you do it again?"

"I'm sorry, angel, I --"

"Crowley, please." 

Aziraphale closes her eyes and tips her chin up, expectant and waiting. What else can Crowley do but oblige? She feels desperately unholy with Aziraphale's lips against hers, damned again with the enthusiastic glide of her tongue against Crowley's teeth. Her anxieties about the state of the world and the people in it and what she may or may not be suspected and expected of slip away for just heartbeats and there is nothing but Aziraphale and her mouth and the flutter of her silvery eyelashes and the tentative touch of her warm hands. 

Aziraphale breathes like she's finished running a five-kilometer race. "How very novel," she laughs and touches Crowley's face so sweetly. "You must kiss very often. I'm certainly not qualified to judge, but I think you're quite good at it."

"I --"

"Do it again."

She does. [8]

Aziraphale is a soft place to land.

There is little discussion, lips and minds otherwise occupied. Crowley negotiates with Azirapahle's sweater, winning the hand easily -- being allowed to win it. The silk of her camisole shines against her pale chest and arms. The lace trim is delicate against the fleshiness of her body, the sturdy straps of the brassiere beneath accentuating the soft bits Crowley wants to get her teeth on. Aziraphale navigates the buttons on the front of Crowley's blouse with clumsy fingers, the roundness of them working against her. Aziraphale's palms are moist against Crowley's shoulders, fingertips gliding over the hard track of her bones just under the skin toward her throat. Crowley is not so encumbered by foundations and Aziraphale's hands are hot through the soft cotton of her combinations. [9]

Crowley hesitates at the fly of Aziraphale's perfectly pressed slacks. She nods and laughs softly, lifting her hips to let Crowley peel her out of them. She laughs as they get stuck just momentarily around her shoes, shaking her feet to free them and drawing Crowley forward again.

Crowley cannot help but touch. There is so much of Azirapahle to be had. So much gloriously doughy flesh. So perfect and blemishless against the smooth ivory of camisole and tap pant. She insinuates a hand beneath the camisole, caressing the untrained curve of Aziraphale's belly and waist. The angel sighs prettily, her spine lifting and her head falling lazily.

"Angel, we shouldn't. I shouldn't've -- "

Aziraphale's heavy eyes open. "I don't compare, do I?"

"What? No, it isn't that. You -- you're... singular." Crowley doesn't know how else to classify it. Six thousand years are suddenly crashing around her ears. "I wouldn't dare cause trouble for you."

Aziraphale indulges her with a dreamy expression and a warm hand on her cheek. "No trouble. It's... it's part of the Arrangement. A perfectly even score. You tempt me to wickedness. I impress upon you your worthiness of Grace." The steady flush of her face creeps down her throat and across her chest.

"I'm taking advantage of you. You haven't got all your faculties properly about you."

Aziraphale laughs. "Six thousand years and twice as many bottles shared and you think I'm that much of a lightweight?" Precious-metal fringe falls heavily, eyes dark with it. "I know what I'm doing, Crowley-dear." She graces Crowley with another kiss, a tender little smear of lip-to-lip. "I know what I want."

"No you don't, angel -- at least... you don't know what you're getting into." Crowley stands. She steps away from the sofa, seeking out her shoe with the tips of her toes. "I am _indescribably _grateful that you would try so very hard to lure me to the Light, but I -- "

Aziraphale reaches out and catches the fabric of Crowley's skirt, holding it between two curled fingers just at the curve of her hip. "Crowley," she says seriously. "Come back."

Eyes closed, Crowley takes a step back, letting herself be led by the gentle tug on her clothes. She stands stubbornly, sullenly, with her back to Aziraphale.

"May I?" Warm hands settle on Crowley's waist, the weight of them pulling her closer still.

"If you insist," Crowley whispers.

Aziraphale fumbles far less with the little hook and zip at the back of the skirt. She pinches the fabric at the waist, knuckles against Crowley's spine, to pull the zip in one smooth motion. The skirt falls to the floor under its own weight, tweed sailing down over Crowley's narrow hips to pool at her feet. She steps out of it, bumping Aziraphale's knees where she sits.

"Sorry," Crowley mutters, too conscious of the weight of the combinations against her skin.

"Sit."

"Pardon me?"

"Sit, please."

Crowley's cheeks burn as she perches herself on Azirphale's lap._This is ridiculous_, she thinks. Aziraphale reaches up and means to take the glasses from her face. Crowley hisses softly in warning, an unconscious riposte, her hands flying to her face to keep the glasses in place. Aziraphale strokes her hot skin instead, watching her dreamily from scant inches below. 

Crowley touches Aziraphale's hands, covering them with her own. She moves them away, dragging them over her throat, feeling the weight of her Grace in the touch. Crowley lets go to reach out, touching Aziraphale with tentative hands. She could make just a little trouble. To be close to Aziraphale this way would be worth it. The angel could talk her way out of being cast out, Crowley was sure. She'd managed it after she'd _lost_ her sword. But this would be worthwhile to hold onto when Hell discorporated her for good for contradicting their instructions in so large a way.

She would wreak havoc, she decides, with her hands against Azirapahle's skin and her lips against Crowley's breast -- breath impossibly hot through cotton. But, she wouldn't wreak the havoc Hell wanted. It wouldn't take more than a little push to get the ball rolling on an abrupt change of power. It would tip things into confusion just long enough to let the humans decide their own course. [10]

"Crowley-dear, you're thinking very hard."

"I'm not thinking at all, angel."

"You most certainly are. You're always very quiet when you think. At least when you're _really_ thinking." She laughs and really kisses Crowley again, full on the lips and utterly brazen. "I think there might even be smoke coming out of your ears."

"You don't know me _that_ well, angel."

Crowley can hardly keep the petulance out of her voice. Aziraphale laughs again, very much at her, and relaxes into the selfish searching of Crowley's fingers and mouth until she doesn't.

"No," Aziraphale says softly. She draws Crowley's hands away, holding them sweetly "Everything else is very nice." She lifts Crowley's knuckles to her lips. "I would for you, if you'd like. It would make me very happy." Aziraphale's eyes shine, those damned lashes falling and lifting at such an alluring pace.

Crowley turns, meaning to leave, and Aziraphale stops her _again_. Astride Aziraphale's thigh, holding herself to hover awkwardly, Crowley freezes. "You don't know what you're doing, _angel." _

"You really think that I'm so naive? Or is it that you don't believe you deserve some little bit of happiness and pleasure?"

"I'm a _demon_, Aziraphale."

"Well then pleasure should be your wheelhouse." Aziraphale threads her fingers into Crowley's -- holy palmers' kiss -- and rests her cheek gently against Crowley's spine in the cradle between her shoudlers. "I won't hold you to it."

Crowley hesitates. She lowers herself. Thunder shakes the building.

They've never been in such a conundrum before. It happened so suddenly and so fast. One moment Crowley was basking in the warmth of Aziraphale's favor and the next... she's not thought it through at all. Of course there would be barriers to this. Their Arrangement didn't have any stipulation for this kind of camaraderie.

Crowley peeks over her shoulder at the top of Aziraphale's blonde head. "Is it because of that? What I am... what you are?"

"Crowley-dear, absolutely not." Her breath is humid against Crowley's skin. "I've had a few thousand years to consider things. I simply don't desire that bit of it very much."

"Alright." Crowley's chest is tight, nerves humming with anxiety. Aziraphale shifts her legs and Crowley gasps, body jerked against her thigh. Aziraphale smiles against her skin.

"That sounded nice."

Crowley squeezes her thighs around Aziraphale's, a sharp tremor dancing up toward her brain. "Angel, I don't want you to do anything that you -- "

"_Crowley_," Aziraphale hisses.

Crowley grips her hands. "I know what this is. You've fallen to temp -- "

"Crowley you're very good at what you do, but I'm not sure how much more clear I can make myself." She returns Crowley's tight grip. "Will you make me say it outright, you foul creature?"

The affection in her tone is overt. Crowley relents. She breathes deeply, hands shaking in such tight mutual grip. It is nearly immediate relief to press herself down against Aziraphale's thigh. The muscle beneath the soft cushion of it tightens.

"_Crowley_," Aziraphale breathes.

Crowley moves as she does when she's alone -- an island in the middle of a big empty bed, trembling with seismic waves, thinking of brighter, warmer things.

Aziraphale holds her steady, neatly manicured nails digging into the thin skin of the backs of her hands. She shifts her legs again, planting her toes against the floor. It's easier then, to lean back against Aziraphale's solid form, to rock her hips up and back.

"_Oh, love_," Aziraphale whispers.

Crowley never hears it. The wind outside howls ever louder. The shop windows rattle hard enough to hear upstairs in the little oasis they've claimed. The thunder is louder than before, the storm sitting right overhead.

She moves faster, a few dozen more fluid joints making her motion serpentine and efficient. [11] She clenches her teeth, breath hissing between them and spittle flying. She's nearly ashamed at how little time it takes to hurtle toward her peak and fall over the summit. Her legs shake, electrified. The gusset of her combinations is wet, her thighs and Aziraphale's slipping with it.

"Angel," Crowley croaks. She can't make her legs stop. The muscles of her stomach seize. Her hands shake in Aziraphale's grip.

"Yes, dear?"

"I think the world is ending."

Limbs leaden and numb, Crowley sinks vaguely downward between Azirphale's legs and the solidity of the floor beneath her is almost as reassuring as the Aziraphale's softness.

The angel laughs. "This lovely sofa was meant to keep you _off _of the floor."

"Yes, well, it's nice down here." She cannot help but laugh as well. She rests her forehead against the inside of Aziraphale's knee, sunnies jarred against her nose. The angel reaches down, patting Crowley's head sweetly.

The morning is still and quiet the way it always is when the skies and the ground have been scoured by a storm. The air tastes heavy like Crowley's been gulping mineral water by the gallon. In the night, they finished their third bottle slowly between whispers and whispered promises.

_I will not work for you -- I will not work against you -- I will not leave you behind --_

Aziraphale is already down in the shop when the sun has taken its place in the sky, beginning to burn though the last of the clouds of the previous day. Crowley lingers in the room upstairs. The sofa really _is_ very comfortable. She curls up on the cushions, tracing the pattern of the upholstery just in front of her nose. Her glasses sit on the table, abandoned after Aziraphale quit the room. Warm smells curl up the staircase and through the floorboards -- fresh coffee and bread and melting butter -- and Crowley's stomach decides that it's time to peel her body off the sofa and greet the day. She clothes herself more than a little haphazardly, not bothering to tuck her blouse in, and rakes her fingers through her hair.

"Crowley-dear," Aziraphale calls from the bottom of the stairs. "Will you let me feed you before you're off?"

"Absolutely," Crowley croaks with a disused morning-voice. "I'd never pass up a meal with you."

Aziraphale ushers her into the back of the shop when she's traipsed down the stairs and makes a fuss over arranging food and beverage on a tray. She looks up at Crowley, beginning to explain that she has strawberry preserves but sadly no marmalade and stops mid-thought and smiles.

"Your eyes are so bright." Crowley touches her face, realizing she's left her glasses upstairs. They appear in Aziraphale's hand and she offers them up, as if she'd been holding them all along. "Here you go."

Crowley hooks the glasses onto her ears and stops. She slides them atop her head rather that onto her nose. "Strawberry's wonderful."

Crowley savors the warmth of the coffee as it slides down her throat. She holds the mug close to her chest and swings her feet up over the arm of her customary chair. She admires her own legs for a moment, scandalously stockingless and shining in the soft light from the reading lamp with coppery down.

"Vanity is a sin, you know," Crowley says as Aziraphale returns from bringing the empty tray back into the kitchenette. She pauses in front of a display case and smooths the front of her neat tartan waistcoat.

"I haven't the slightest notion what you're talking about."

Crowley tips her head back and slides her glasses from the top of her head to the bridge of her nose. Aziraphale pauses, arms akimbo, and looks down at her from above.

"See," she indicates how Crowley is sitting with a jerk of her head. "Origami."

"I should probably be on my way."

"Plans?"

"Things. You?"

"I have a client who is willing to trade a selection of original vellum from the _Konungsbók _if I can find them some other rare text. I'm meant to meet with a collector that may have what I'm looking for this afternoon. It's a miracle that they're here in London right now, really." [12]

Azirphale strokes Crowley's hair absently as one might a favored pet. Her expression is distant and dreamy, already crawling over the pages of whatever book she's about to get her hot little hands on. Her fingertips stray over Crowley's temples for a moment. "Do you have wicked things to do?"

"Perhaps. I am what I am." Aziraphale hums in agreement and uses her fingers like combs. "What kind of book are you meant to get?"

Aziraphale chatters about the texts and fusses with Crowley's hair, frowning when her fingers become entangled and unknowingly tugging quite sharply to free them. The grandfather clock chimes out the hour and Azirphale gasps. "Oh my, I've got to be going! I didn't realize how late it really was."

Crowley sits up reluctantly and rights herself, putting her shoes on and tucking her blouse in. Aziraphale bustles around her, collecting her hat and coat and the buttery leather travel bag she carries on trips like this. She'll go armed with lesser texts to incentivize the purchase, ones that she wouldn't be too heartbroken over losing. Crowley wonders if one of them might be the book that the pushy gentleman was so intent on purchasing.

They pause at the shop door, lingering in the vestibule. There is someone there on the sidewalk, their shape just apparent through the textured glass window.

"Do you think it'll rain today?" Crowley stalls, fiddling with the waist of her skirt and the arrangement of her blouse.

"Oh, I dearly hope not." Aziraphale switches her bag from one hand to the other. "Crowley?"

"Yes?" Crowley stops with her hand on the door.

"Might I give you a kiss?"

"Yes," Crowley blurts too quickly.

Aziraphale cranes upward to meet Crowley's lips with her own. Although it is brief, the contact fills Crowley with warmth and makes her tremble. Aziraphale smiles as bright as the sun and covers Crowley's hand on the doorknob with hers, turning it. [13]

"Mr. _Fell_!" the man they met the previous day shouts from near the Bentley. His dog is with him again, pulling toward the street, nose pointed at the opposite sidewalk. He squawks a bit in surprise, meeting Crowley's eye behind her sunnies as he tugs the dog forward. "Mr. Fell, I _must _have a word with you."

Crowley turns and Aziraphale is changed. His brow furrows in irritation and he tells the man to come back when the shop is open, pretending not to recognize him. Crowley suppresses a laugh.

"But you're hardly _ever _ open and I must have that book!" The dog pulls him again. "And you really _must_ speak with your wife and her -- her -- her _companion_," he gestures toward Crowley with the leash in his hand, "about how they conduct themselves!"

"Sir, I don't know what you're talking about," Aziraphale chirps. "I have no wife. I do believe I told you yesterday to _clear off_."

"Mr. Fell, this is absurd!"

"Crowley-dear, do go back inside and ring the constable."

The man storms away, grumbling and pulling his reluctant dog. The dog barks and the sound echoes in the narrow canyon of buildings and the still air of the mid-morning.

Crowley clutches at Aziraphale's arm, struggling not to bark in laughter.

"That was quite a lark," Aziraphale trills. He calms himself, pursing his lips and dropping his shoulders back haughtily. [14] "Do endeavor not to cause _too_ much strife today, Crowley."

"Oh, angel, you know I can't make any promises like that."

Aziraphale nods and steps away. "I shall see you soon then."

Crowley agrees and moves toward the Bentley. She watches Azirphale go, waving back to him when he does. Settled into the cockpit, Crowley grips the steering wheel, resolute. Peeling away from the curb, she hums something unfamilar and altogether uncanny in its familiarity. [15]

On the opposite side of the street, a disagreeable figure watches the exchange. With the Bentley out of sight, they turn away from the bookshop. As they pass a lamppost, it is as if they were never there to begin with save for the lingering stench of sulfur.

* * *

1\. Wallis Simpson, the mistress and then wife of Edward VIII. [Back to text.]

2\. The car is a Bentley 6½ Litre, produced as a racing vehicle designed to out-do a Rolls-Royce that WO Bentley had a street race against during a trip to the 1924 French Grand Prix. [Back to text.]

3\. It's an improvement over the very first speed regulations, limiting vehicles to just sixteen kilometers per hour. Not _enough_ of an improvement as far as Crowley is concerned. [Back to text.]

4\. All of Aziraphale's personal time was spent in the bookshop. She has everything she could possibly need, especially with the addition of the little modern kitchenette off the back room. Additional furnishings were unnecessary. The rooms upstairs were entirely empty save for a thick layer of dust. [Back to text.]

5\. Noah's Ark, of course. Which really wasn't all that bad of a flood in reality -- Noah just had a bit of a dramatic flare and a talent for storytelling. [Back to text.]

6\. A 1900 Chateau Margaux, the result of a harvest that occurred under the absolute most perfect weather conditions -- hot, dry, and sunny -- and the second positively monumental harvest for the region. It would be known in the new millennium as the vintage of the century. [Back to text.]

7\. In the decade previous, Crowley favored a very short, very straight bob and fringe modeled after Louise Brooks. More recently, she'd been enamored with Carole Lombard -- particularly in the film, _Supernatural_. She had seen it six times in the theater and couldn't explain the plot even if threatened with discorporation. She'd been too taken with Lombard to absorb much more than the actress's striking presence. The tragedy of her passing in just a few short years would leave Crowley reeling. [Back to text.]

8\. Since the invention of the kiss, there have only been five kisses that were rated the most passionate, the most pure. This one left them all behind -- even if it wasn't part of the correct source material. [Back to text.]

9\. A sort of step-in undergarment that served the purpose of bra, chemise, and panty all in one. Crowley had come up with it herself. While it provided an excellent base for the most popular silhouette of the time, it was an absolute devil to use the restroom in. Decades later, stylish young women would find themselves in the same trap with the rising popularity of the romper and jumpsuit. The combinations of the Victorian era were none so inconvenient. [Back to text.]

10\. Edward would give up the throne and go off with his wife, leaving his younger brother to step up to the plate. George VI would rule for just about sixteen years, saying that he had assumed a rocking throne and tried to make it steady again. [Back to text.]

11\. Humans have thirty-three vertebra and twenty-four ribs. (Except for Adam, of course. He wound up with twenty-three in the end.) Snakes may have between two and four hundred vertebra with as many sets of ribs attached. [Back to text.]

12\. It would not be lost on Aziraphale that the text she is attempting to acquire has been missing for some time. The _Great Lacuna _deals extensively in the narrative of Sigurd and Brunhild [Back to text.].

13\. Amended from [8]. [Back to text.]

14\. Aziraphale is, in fact, just a bit of a bastard. [Back to text.]

15\. [It'll take a few decades for Crowley to put it all together. ](https://youtu.be/_Jtpf8N5IDE) [Back to text.]

**Author's Note:**

> Get it. The _Fall_ of 1936?
> 
> I dearly love comments.
> 
> Shout out to yd whom I hope enjoyed the hair fussing.


End file.
